I love modern fountain pens.  The quality, selection and cleanliness seem much better than my childhood nightmares of high-school-required fountain pens.  I have horrid memories of my white school dress shirts with blue stains on the breast pocket from fountain pen leaks.  But time and discussions with other fountain pen users that enjoy vintage pens had me curious to whether a properly-adjusted, quality, vintage pen would be as disastrous as the school pens that haunt my dreams.

The Birmingham Pens Model A is a hand-made, acrylic, cartridge/converter fountain pen that comes with a wide choice of steel nibs.  The “Eye of Sauron” version of this pen is a beautiful shimmering red colour, and I chose the Nemosine 0.6mm stub nib.  This was an excellent choice as the finished pen is both beautiful and a fantastic writing pen.

A special edition pen made from recycled Nespresso coffee capsules

The Caran d’Ache Nespresso 849 ballpoint pen is an aluminum bodies variant of the standard 849 pen.  It has an excellent manufacturing story, pretty looks, and an acceptably performing ballpoint refill.